Sow All You Can

Before they started working

Yesterday, eleven volunteers from the United Methodist Women’s international conference helped to sow seeds in the food pantry plots at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  As reported in today’s Dispatch, the UMW are celebrating 150 years by meeting in Columbus, where its first conference was held 77 years ago.  The SACG had volunteers from Korea, Alaska, San Diego, Florida, and Iowa.   They had not been told in advance where they would be volunteering, and so most were not dressed or prepared for hard work in a community garden on a hot day.  Bill Dawson from Franklin Park Conservatory came by for some selfies and to drop off lettuce and beet seedlings to support our effort.  Cathy from Urban Connections also pitched in during a crises to refrigerate the UMW’s boxed lunches and open the UC Ministry House for restroom access and a place to eat out of the sun. 

Our irises were donated by the CG at the Epworth UMC

On Wednesday evening, there was almost a full complement of all SACG gardeners when I brought my extra tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings for distribution.   I was able to plant a few peppers in my plot and start on my asparagus beans, as well as transplant a dozen or so volunteer sunflowers.  However, I discovered to my horror that despite receiving an inch of rain on Tuesday, very little of it made it into our rain cisterns.  The hard rain washed a lot of tree pollen into the gutters and clogged the downspout strainers.  So, I left my seedlings at the SACG overnight so that I could return on Thursday morning with my ladder to clean out the gutters (again after already doing it once on Friday).  

After they finished working.  Photo courtesy of Adam Cairns

Luckily, the UMW volunteers were running late, so I was able to clean out the gutters and get everything unlocked before they arrived (as well as transplant a few volunteer cosmos).  I was supposed to be sharing 25 volunteers with another community garden, but they were not sent the memo and did not know to arrive.   (I checked the email later and it was never addressed to my neighbor).   Good thing for the SACG, though, because only 2 volunteers arrived for the SACG and this meant that I got to keep all 11.  (Never fear, I contacted the other garden leader to let him know and he didn’t mind that I kept them all).    But, it meant that I had to call for help with refrigerating their lunches, etc.  Cathy – always my angel in such emergencies – was extremely supportive. 

Sabrina also came to help and brought her two-year old son, Finn.  The ladies gushed over him and his blonde locks.    I took a team of the women and tasked them with weeding and then digging lots of holes in our tomato plot.  While they did that, I dug out some trellises (extra wire fencing) and wood stakes that we store next to the shed.   We hung the trellises and then planted more than a dozen tomato plants in the plot.   We put cages around the plants that were not trellised. 

We tasked another team with weeding and then cultivating a row every two feet in the root crop plot: carrots, turnips, beets and sweet potatoes.  I usually plant more closely together, but with the Community Service volunteers coming to help water these plots over the summer, I wanted to make sure that there was enough room between the rows so that they could walk down them without stepping on any plants.   

Sabrina led the effort in the vining crop plot: zucchini, melons and pole beans.   They weeded it and then created mounds for the squash and melons.  I helped to hang a trellis for the beans and then they planted beans on both sides (I hope).   

Meanwhile, I tasked another lady with planting the lettuce seedlings between our rows of broccoli, brussels sprouts and cabbage.   Bill explained that the seedlings came from the Mid-Ohio Food Bank by way of the Franklin Avenue Community Garden.   He was trying to stop at all of the local community gardens having a work day to share the extra seedlings.  

We also took some of the lettuce seedlings over to the neighbor beds along the alley and planted some extra lettuce there.  I then took a group over to the neighbor bed and we hung a trellis and planted six tomato plants and then a dozen pepper plants. 

After lunch, I marked off four rows where we will plant corn for our co-op plot and we cultivated two such rows.  Fittingly enough, our Iowa volunteer then planted two rows of corn.  All of the plants and seeds were then well watered in as we finished up before waiting for their bus to take them back downtown.  While we were watering and collecting the tools, a Dispatch photojournalist, Adam Cairns, noticed all of the orange shirts.  Curious, he stopped by to take a few photos and interview the women.   He was a good sport.  Before taking a group photo with his own super camera, he took lots of cell phone shots for the women. 

While gardening, I was able to chat with a couple of the women. One lady grew up in Pyongyang (now in North Korea).  Her mother had a vegetable garden during World War II, and so she developed a love of fresh food and flowers.  However, when she got married, it was hard to get fresh food or flowers for her wedding.  She remembered that someone showed up with a bouquet of daisies, so she was delighted with our daisies.  I wanted to send some home with her, but wouldn’t you know that my wine bag full of daisy seeds was in my basement at home!  The daisies we have in bloom were not quite ready to produce seeds yet, or I would have sent her home with seed heads for her own garden.  She also loved our peonies, but wished that we had some pink ones in bloom.  Maybe next year.  I would have loved to have had more time to chat with her.  She worked pretty hard.

The lady from San Diego was so delighted with our efforts that she called her sister to see what they were growing at their community garden in southern California.  It was hysterical.  About the only item we had in common were watermelons.  They are still suffering from water restrictions there, so gardening is the subject of debate.  The Alaskan lady told me that their food pantry won’t accept much fresh produce, so they invite the patrons to stop by their garden for items, such as fresh dill.  They also cannot grow corn up there.

I had told the UMW volunteers that I had been raised as Methodist (and was wearing my United Methodist Mississippi Relief shirt from Hurricane Katrina relief).  John Wesley has a number of famous sermons and sayings, including:

Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can.

At all the times you can.

To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.

And these women put that into practice yesterday by sowing all they could to help the SACG raise more fresh produce for area food pantries and Faith Mission’s homeless shelter.   Big THANKS to the Great Columbus Growing Coalition for arranging for the UMW to assist the SACG and the following community gardens yesterday:  Linden Garden Association, Bible Skipway CG, Franklin Avenue CG,  St. Vincent DePaul Garden (at Christ the King Catholic Church), CMN Memorial  Garden, Lincoln Park Education Garden, Southside Head Start Children's Garden, Fresh Town Farms, Four Seasons City Farm (with Old  First Presbyterian Church), and Garden of Communion. 

So, tomorrow, on Saturday, I will try to get the rest of my pole beans planted, work a little more on prettying up the path edging, and finally turn my attention to our herb garden, etc.  I told our neighbors that if they uncovered one of their raised beds, we would fill it with tomato seedlings (because I have a LOT of extra seedlings).  I also told his teenage volunteers that I would loan them a hoe and teach them to use it because they have been weeding plots by hand.   One of our neighbors is improving the landscaping along the alley, so I promised him some supplies and, to properly thank UC for helping us out today, we will weed around their raised beds and fill it with some of our extra wood chips.   Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.  

Our strawberries are coming in gangbusters, so I hope that we get lots more rain (after I leave at 2:30) so that they also get much bigger.